Woman follows dog on boat to solve one of nature's stinkiest mystery: 'He was curious'

A dog-and-human partnership is taking their act out to sea with remarkable results. 

NPR shared the story of Jack, a blue heeler mix, and Collette Yee, a bounder, in tracking down elusive whale poop while on a boat. Bounders are humans who work with conservation detective dogs like those used by a group operating out of Rice, Washington.

While the duo now appears to be a natural pairing, it wasn't always that way.

"I felt like it was impossible to connect with him," Yee recalled to NPR. "He didn't want anything to do with me."

Fortunately, the two connected when they went out in the field and had successful finds of endangered bumblebee nests among other hard-to-track species. 

"He was a completely different dog. He had calmed down. He was curious. ... This is a dog that gets bored very quickly," Yee told NPR. 

Their next target was almost quite literally the team's white whale. NPR explained that tracking whale poop is highly valuable for scientists because it allows them to monitor the whale's diet and stress levels, see if they're pregnant, and check for toxins. It doesn't require taking the whales into captivity and sedating them. 

In case you were wondering, Yee described whale poop to NPR as "absolutely foul" and likened it to a "gooey booger." To accomplish the task, Yee conditioned Jack to smell whale scat on land by hiding it all over. Once Jack mastered that, it was time to test him at sea.

Pulling it off was incredibly tricky as unlike on land, Jack can't run to the whale poop. Instead, Yee would have to pick up on the dog's cues. Whale scat can also sink or fall apart in as little as 10 minutes, so the team had to work very fast.

Yee would follow Jack's signals while directing the boat captain wordlessly, so as to avoid distracting Jack. It's an incredible testament to the two that they were able to track down whale poop, as confirmed by the whale biologist on board.

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Yee and Jack's canine-human success story is another sign of the growing use of dogs in conservation projects. NPR producer Berly McCoy noted that the practice went from 5-10 papers in the 1990s annually to upward of 60 a year now.

Dogs have been used to sniff out invasive species like spotted lanternflies, find undiscovered truffles, and protect vineyards against unwanted pests. These local efforts by dogs help maintain the ecosystem and protect against intruders.

Man's best friend is also becoming an increasingly valuable tool in other applications, like rescue efforts for humans after avalanches or wildfires. They also can track down poachers illegally killing endangered species in Africa.

While finding whale poop has been a thrill, there is more in the works for dogs out in the field.

McCoy shared two interesting new ones involving oil spills. In one, dogs are trained to find old oil that remains after cleanup efforts. Another has dogs locating sea turtle eggs after spills to move them before they emerge and go into oil-polluted water.

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